Mornings with Gavin

My mornings generally begin in the same way. Gavin climbs into bed with me around 6:30am. He kisses me on the cheek and tells me I'm the best mom he's ever had. It's so sweet that I almost forgive him for waking me up so early. Occasionally, he'll fall back to sleep until 8am. More often, he'll play with his toys and mess with my face. Around 8:30, Olivia will wake up and we'll all make our way downstairs for breakfast. We're a lazy bunch in the mornings and it's pretty much perfect.

Gavin starts prekindergarten in less than a month. It's going be a huge change for all of us. The Albany school district offers prekindergarten spots based on a lottery. Gavin was selected this year and we decided to accept. It's full-time, which has been very hard for me to wrap my head around. At first, I was completely against it. He will just be turning 4- seems like a pretty big change for a little guy. Still, I registered him to hold our spot so I could think about it over the summer months. We have talked with Gavin about it and he is just so excited to start school. Over the past few months, he has really turned into a little boy. He has so much energy and seems like he will really excel in an environment with lots of activities. He is about as social as kids come. I'm fairly confident that he's going to love school.

Being a mom can be so conflicting. It's impossible to quantify the amount of love that I have for Gavin and part of me wants to keep him home so I can have him all to myself. Yet, I look at this little boy that I am raising and realize that I have done a great job with him. He is fun-loving, smart, and confident. Sending him to school will allow these traits to flourish and he'll develop skills that will prepare him for the rest of his life. The school is just a half mile from our house so we'll probably walk when the weather is warm. He'll be home at 2pm, which will give us plenty of time to go to the park afterwards or chat about his day over a snack. It's funny- he's actually been the one making me feel good about this, "Mom, I need to go to school. I want to make friends and learn my letters."

I'm looking forward to having some individual time with Liv. Gavin demands so much interaction that sometimes I feel like Liv isn't getting as much as she'd like. My plan is to drop Gavin off at school, take Olivia to the library for story-time or go for a walk. By late morning, she goes down for a pretty long nap. I should have a good couple of hours to myself which I plan to use for writing and tackling projects around the house in preparation to sell.We'll have lunch and then go pick up the G-unit. It'll be an adjustment but that's what life is, right? The beauty of our situation is that we can change it if we need to. If for some reason, school isn't working out- I can just pull him out. Still, I'm a little sad about all of this. It's really amazing how fast kids grow up. I don't see time slowing down, either. It's why I don't make Gavin go back to his room in the mornings. Before I know it, he'll be a teenager and I'll be wishing for the days when he tickled my ears with his Mr. Potato Head arms.